SKY
This unbound book is a box of sky: sky in different seasons, weather conditions, and times of day. It is a document of the sky over the course of a year.
When I moved to Alberta, I was struck by the presence of the sky. It’s vast. In certain weathers and seasons, it feels alive. In this book, I observed what the sky here is about: winds and weather systems and clouds and light and dark. I became interested in the sky containing things we can see (such as clouds) and things we can’t (such as wind), knowing that both are equally present, whether visible or not. The process of creating this book caused me to question the relationship of the photographic to the invisible, and of words to what cannot be photographed (as well as to what can).
There are 66 photographs in the box. They look like polaroids, but aren’t. But they look like polaroids because I want the photographs to have the immediacy and tactile physicality of a polaroid: one image shot at a specific moment in time that you can hold in your hands. There is text on the back of each image in a black square that resembles the back of old polaroid film.
Archival inkjet prints in clamshell box
box: 5 x 4 x 2”
each photograph: 3 3/8 x 4 1/4”
The full text from the inside the box is underneath the image gallery, below.
A few sample texts from the backs of the polaroids are included in the images.
SKY
The sky is the thing that is always above all of the things we think of when we think of where we are.
The sky is so many things: winds and weather systems and clouds and stars and light and dark. It is things we can see, and things we can’t. It is things we can feel and those we cannot.
I photograph the sky, over and over, but photographs feel static and dull while the sky feels alive. The invisible aspects of wind and air cannot be photographed. The sky resists photography.
Maybe it is enough to know that some aspect of daily existence remains ineffable. Maybe it is important to be able to simply look up at the sky and to find wonder again in the expanse above us.